


satumaa

by mornen



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, F/M, Longing, Separation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:27:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25673557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mornen/pseuds/mornen
Summary: Elrond wishes he could send a message to Celebrían, to help her while he is left on Middle-earth.*Elrond stands by the sea, and it looks wider every time he comes, even though things are supposed to look smaller as you grow older. But maybe that doesn’t apply to the things that you want. He stands with his feet in the water, and it’s cold. The sun lies white beneath silver clouds. It is summer, but there is no warmth.
Relationships: Celebrían/Elrond Peredhel
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	satumaa

Elrond stands by the sea, and it looks wider every time he comes, even though things are supposed to look smaller as you grow older. But maybe that doesn’t apply to the things that you want. He stands with his feet in the water, and it’s cold. The sun lies white beneath silver clouds. It is summer, but there is no warmth.

If he plunged into the water, it would take a moment to breathe again, but he would breathe. He could swim for maybe three days in the sea, but that would not be enough.

His fingers drag through the water. The waves are dark blue and dark green, but the colours stay separate, and he wants to write it in a book someday, but he doesn’t know how to describe it. He’s lived long enough that he should be able to describe how the water is almost transparent by the shore and then grows darker so suddenly, and how the deepness of the green is cut by strips of undulating blue where the waves lift, and all of it changes every moment, and each colour is too neatly defined, but he has no reason to write what is only his own sorrow into the books of history, so he cannot say how the sea looks.

He wishes he was standing on a cliff, that he was in a tower. Because if he were, he could throw himself onto the sea, and maybe he would become a bird like his very own mother, and he could fly away to the far off shores that he has never seen but to which he has sent his love, his very own heart. If he were in a tower, on a cliff, if he could jump, and turn into a bird, if he flew up into the air, if he had wings, he would no longer have fingers, and his ring would slip away into the sea, and he would no longer have that duty, and he could fly like a song to her.

He walks into the north sea. It is the north sea, and it is always cold. He stands in the water up to his shoulders. Maybe it will freeze his heart. But the pain does not leave.

Elrond bends and kisses the sea. The water is cold and wet against his lips because it is the sea, it is only the sea. A wave splashes over his face. He breathes out. He kisses the sea again when the wave has passed. He lifts his head slightly.

‘Take that to my love,’ he whispers to the sea. ‘Tell her I hope she’s found peace.’

He steps farther into the water. It goes to his neck. For so long he was the one who had been hurt worse, for so long. And then it changed, and she was, and that was worse than any pain that had ever been done to him. Willingly he would live each of his griefs a thousand times over to spare her from her pain. Willingly he would die a thousand deaths.

But he could not take her pain. And he could not take her place. He could not save her. He could not heal her.

So he placed her on a ship in the cold sea, and he said good-bye, and he stepped off the ship, and that was the hardest thing he had ever done. He watched the ship go until it was gone from his sight. And then he stood longer, because he had spent all his strength stepping off the ship, and Elladan had to carry him away.

In another world, he threw the ring to anyone who would take it, he threw the ring to the un-described waves, and he took their three children, and he never left the ship, and they were all carried to that for off land where nothing ever dies and every sorrow can be forgotten.

If he was more selfish, would he be happier? (If he wanted less.)

He aches, and he cannot stop it. He would pray to every god he knew, pray to his father, if he thought that they could help him. But he does not know what to pray for.

‘Give her peace,’ he whispers to the sea, to the sky.

That is his only prayer, and maybe if it is granted, he could find a way to know peace.

*

Celebrían sits by the sea. It is wide and warm and many shades of teal. She sits, and the sun is warm on her. Her hair brushes against her ears. She will have to cut it again soon. It has gotten too long, reaching just beneath her ears. She does not think she will ever have long hair again.

Tonight she will cut it close to her scalp again. She holds a blanket around her shoulders even though it is warm. She will have to go north soon. She misses the sting of the cold and the clearness of winter air. She misses seasons. Autumn when all the leaves turned colours, beautiful even in death. Winter when the lakes would freeze and she would skate on them. Spring when the flowers would all come again, more special because they’d been gone, and you would suddenly remember what the warmth of the sun was, how warm the sun could be.

Imladris had stronger seasons than Lórien, and she would never blame her mother for hating the winter, but she’d always loved it, when the moon was bright on the snow and everything was covered in gems that no one had to die for. She would lie by the fire on the rug, wrapped in a blanket, and Elrond would sing.

She looks up again. There is nothing but sea reaching the far horizon. There are no clouds. The waves are gentle against the white shore.

She runs her hand through the water. The waves kiss her fingers, for a moment, cold.

**Author's Note:**

> request for Elrond and Celebrían based on the song Satumaa 
> 
> Satumaa (fairytale land)
> 
> There is somewhere a country beyond the wide sea
> 
> Where waves wash on shores of happiness
> 
> Where beautiful flowers always blossom
> 
> Over worries of tomorrow, that can be forgotten
> 
> Oh, if only once I could fly to that wonderland
> 
> Then I would stay there and never leave it like a bird
> 
> But without wings I can’t fly, I’m staying here
> 
> Only my free thoughts may sometimes be there
> 
> ~ ~ ~
> 
> Fly my song to the fairytale land’s azure coast
> 
> There lives my beloved one who’s waiting for me
> 
> Fly my song, as the bird flies across land and sea
> 
> Tell her that she is the only one I keep in my heart
> 
> Oh, if only once I could fly to that wonderland
> 
> Then I would stay there and never leave it like a bird
> 
> But without wings I can’t fly, I’m staying here
> 
> Only my free thoughts may sometimes be there
> 
> by Reijo Taipale
> 
> translated by Vaeriu Raut


End file.
